Day Fourteen July 2, 2006

Well, I was pretty stressed an snappish by the time we left Sacramento. The good news is we made great time and got to the San Fernando Valley by 8 p.m. (the bad news we were in the San Fernando Valley :-)

Leroy was pretty good for the trip down, and even slept for a bit (since he had been staying up 'til midnight during his cousin's "sleep over" that wasn't a surprise). It was warm, but breezy when we got in so we decided to go for a swim in the hotel pool. No one was in the pool, there was just one person there on a lounger reading People. Terry was swimming in the deep end and was about 2/3rds across when I heard him thrashing a bit. I asked if he needed help, but he just turned around and swam back towards the end of the pool. He then thrashed some more, and shouted help. I have no life-saving training for pools, I just swim okay, and have been in pools and water since I was a kid. Terry, on the other hand, has just learned swimming in the last two-years, and is still working on strokes, and has just learned to float. He is also larger than I am, and in water over our heads, I wasn't sure I could get him out. I swam over, and started pushing him up and over towards the shallow end where he could stand. I had to come up for air a couple times myself, but I got him back.

He must have become disoriented in the pool. The light was low (dusk, pool was in shadow, Terry was wearing new tinted goggles and has poor eye-sight to begin with), and the deep-end had a steep drop to 9 feet. Terry said he looked out as he was swimming and thought he wasn't making any progress, so he panicked. I think he needs swim lessons like the ones in Officer and a Gentleman where they dropped the aviator candidates into a pool at high velocity to simulate an over-water ejection to see if the cadets could overcome/avoid disorientation.